The gate is just next to a place that every tourist to Rome knows, La Bocca della Verità (The Mouth of Truth). One crosses a courtyard and enters a workshop of industrial architecture which becomes more and more fascinating on the approach to this antique landmark. Here in via dei Cerchi, the former Pantanella pasta factory, since the beginning of the Thirties il Teatro dell' Opera has created and produced the scenery here as well as preserving over sixty thousand costumes that have been worn by the most important artists of both opera and ballet. It has a stunning main office. The structure was created by the architect Busiri Vici which has a viewing point equal to 23x44 metres of light, without pillars, is among one of the first experiments of triangular brackets in reinforced concrete. Large spaces, filled with light and a splendid view of Circo Massimo and the Palatine. A jewel is hiding underground: a low relief work dedicated to the god Mithra, a cult of Persian origins, popular in Rome in the first century AD.

The workshop-deposit spreads over three floors. The joinery, where they prepare frames canvas and wooden backgrounds for scenes of all the performances, according to the typical technique and usage of the machines for the theatre. The crane to lift and let down the constructions. The sculpture room. The enormous hall where the canvasses are painted, according to the tradition of the Italian scenery, is a fine example of art and craftmanship exported all over the world.

The colours still in use today are natural, diluted using animal and vinyl glues. The brush used is a long stick that ends in a brass nozzle holding charcoal. An original instrument that is used standing thus giving a particular view to the painting.

Cambelotti, Prampolini, De Chirico, Manzù, Picasso and Guttuso are among just some of the many artists that have worked on performances for the Teatro dell'Opera over the years finding a real treasure of skills and expertise in their workshops. They themselves and the greatest set designers like Cagli, Chagall, Maccari, Turcato even Visconti, Pizzi, Zeffirelli and Ferretti have painted in these historic rooms.

The building constructed for the preservation of pasta, being of perfect temperature, has turned out to be very suitable for the conservation of the conspicuous patrimony of costumes. The costumes Callas wore in Norma, by Tebaldi in Tosca, By Scotto in Madam Butterfly, by Schipa in Traviata, by Del Monaco in Othello. Or the one worn by Hariclea Darclèe on the 14th of january 1900 in the first Tosca.